


Switchlock

by fellshish



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bodyswap, Crack, Don’t copy to another site, Happy Ending, Humor, In more ways than one, M/M, Masturbation, OR IS IT??, POV Sherlock Holmes, Reichenbach Feels, Switched Bodies, literally out of character, or is it a handjob?, this is complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 11:32:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16953225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fellshish/pseuds/fellshish
Summary: “This phone call… it’s… it’s my note,” Sherlock says, shakingly reaching his hand toward John, far below him on the street at St Bartholomew's Hospital.Was there ever a worse time for a body swap?:)(The devil wrote this summary.)





	Switchlock

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to thejohnlockoutlet for britpicking and to 88thparallel for beta'ing with love, encouragement and strict, fair feedback.

“This phone call… it’s… it’s my note,” Sherlock says, shakingly reaching his hand toward John, far below him on the street at St Bartholomew's Hospital.

And that’s when it happens.

Like a jolt of electricity, in an instant. Sherlock opens his eyes, and he’s looking up instead of down. He’s standing - impossibly - where John was standing.

However improbable...

John’s mobile phone slips from his hand and hits the ground.

But it’s not - it’s not _his_ hand. It’s John’s. Sherlock’s brain. John’s body.

He can feel his - John’s - heart beating heavily against his chest. How is this possible?

No time. High up on St Bart’s hospital, he can see his own body, the silhouette of a suicide.

It jolts.

Is that John ‘falling’ into Sherlock’s body? If Sherlock is inside John’s, that would make sense. However, it’s slightly inconvenient if one’s body is standing on the edge of a strikingly tall building.

Sherlock hastily picks up the mobile phone and can hear one word -

“ _Fuck_ ” -

spoken in his own voice, before the silhouette against the sky stumbles forward off the roof from pure shock.

And is immediately caught in the protective harness Sherlock was wearing up there.

With Moriarty dead, he’d figured he might as well put it on, just in case.

Standing frozen on the street, Sherlock can see his _own body_ struggling against the harness, like a puppet. A mobile phone falls down the building’s front to the pavement. This wakes him from his haze, and Sherlock runs toward the scene.

Well, _running_. His steps seem a lot smaller. This is disorienting. Like miscalculating the dose of a drug so your limbs feel all wrong.

He gestures toward the struggling figure against the wall.

“Release the safety catch!” he yells. To no avail, of course.

Sherlock motions with John’s hands, mimicking the movement ‘John’ should make up there. As he turns the corner, he frantically points at the huge inflatable landing cushion his homeless network has carried there, and mimes falling onto it as best as he can.

He’s getting the hang of this body.

Well, mostly John is getting the _hang_ of _his_ body. Sherlock can tell he is getting very angry.

“Just let go!” Sherlock yells, but his body can’t hear him.

It’s weird, being the commander of John’s voice.

“Sorry, Sherlock,” he whispers to himself, to hear his own name in that voice. “You’re so handsome.”

He giggles, but he shouldn’t - this is a dangerous situation.

As a Sherlock-shaped figure keeps struggling in his harness just below the edge of the rooftop, the actual Sherlock glances at his homeless network, now pointing and scratching their heads. Not very good for his street credibility, this.

He runs inside the hospital and pushes the lift buttons. Too slow, too slow. His body could be falling right now. He’d be stuck inside John forever. And not in the way he’s always dreamed of.

He chooses the stairwell.

Holy… What… On … Bloody….

It takes _forever_.

By the time he reaches the roof, he’s panting. He can see a tiny mop of curls just below the roof’s edge. The wind will _ruin_ my hair, he thinks.

“I thought you were a military man,” Sherlock pants, leaning over the edge of the building and trying to pull - himself? – up by the arms. “You should… really… exercise… more.”

John, trembling inside Sherlock’s body, now leans on all fours on the hospital roof. Breathing hard. Even though he did _zero stairs._

“Oh, like YOU exercise,” he says. “You’re skinny as a bloody rat. That ridiculous bouncy castle would’ve bounced you right back against the brick wall like a feather.”

Sherlock is stunned, seeing and hearing himself talk to him. But it’s John. Unmistakably. The words, the pronunciation, the intonation. The blame.

“We need to talk,” John says. “We have a problem.”

Sherlock nods, running John’s hand nervously through his newly short, greying hair. _Oh_. This is nice.

“Yes, obviously.”

“Were you about to… _fake suicide_ in front of me?” John yells.

“Well, don’t you think there are more pressing issues?” Sherlock asks, openly rubbing John’s hair now, trying not to purr.

“I don’t think _freaky friday_ is more important than my best friend” - John points angrily at, well, himself - “trying to trick me into thinking he’s dying.”

“Only for a bit!”

“Only… for… a bit? You insane… machine…. If I could strangle my own body, I would!”

A few tense seconds pass. Then they both burst out laughing. Sherlock wipes tears from John’s eyes, John is bent over, grabbing his small waist.

Then, their laughter subsides. Suddenly, they realise the gravity of the situation.

“This is actually… Quite scary,” John admits.

“Yes... Indeed,” Sherlock says. “But we’ll find a way out of this, I promise you.”

“You will, or I’ll grow you a mustache,” John threatens.

“See if you can!” Sherlock taunts.

Then, he looks behind him, and startles. Where Moriarty’s body should be lying, there’s only a pool of blood left.

“Moriarty! He’s gone!”

“What do you mean?”

“He was lying right there, when I stepped onto that edge. Dead.”

He looks up into his own uncomprehending face - new muscles must be used for that, Sherlock notes.

“He must’ve faked his suicide!” Sherlock explains, scandalised. John’s voice can go to a strange high place, apparently.

His own body rolls his eyes back at him. “People with bouncy castles shouldn’t throw stones.”

 

***

 

“John? John? John? John?” John’s voice says, voicing Sherlock’s thoughts.

“What?”

“Your body has to pee.”

“Well, if I may so inform you, it is capable of it.”

Sherlock looks down, feeling slightly embarrassed. They’re still on the hospital roof, the wind blowing hard against his cheeks.

“If you… don’t mind.”

“If I don’t mind what?”

“Me seeing your penis.”

John pales - though it is barely noticeable in Sherlock’s already marble-like body.

“Well, don’t describe it like _that_ ,” John replies. Absentmindedly, he touches his cheekbones. “You just made it weird!”

Sherlock drags his former body toward the roof’s exit - the one without bouncy castle, that is.

“Stop walking funny,” John says.

“This is how you walk!” Sherlock replies.

John angrily throws Sherlock’s scarf over his neck, as they continue to walk in silence.

Sherlock decides to... relieve John’s body in St. Bart’s top floor toilets.

“Thank god it’s so quiet up here,” John says as they’re walking through the dim-lit hallway.

“It’s mostly old people up here.”

“So?” John asks. “They’re not dead.”

“Yet. And EastEnders is on.”

“How do you know what time EastEnders is on?”

Sherlock ignores the question and leaves his previous body waiting outside while he enters the empty men’s toilet. It’s a tiny space with three urinals, quite close to each other. He approaches one of them hesitantly still, then he stubbornly decides to be almost clinical, professional about this.

It’s just a wee, after all.

He straightens his back, and, staring levelly at the wall in front of him, he slowly unzips John’s trousers, reaches in…

Nothing.

No fly opening in the underwear?

Damn it.

He looks down, and sighs.

Into battle.

“Sherlock?” Sherlock’s voice hisses through the door.

The actual Sherlock startles, snapping the pants’ elastic band hard against John’s skin.  

“What?” he calls out.

“You’re taking an awful long time,” the voice says. “While I have a _perfectly average_ bladder.”

“Stop talking!” Sherlock yells. “You’re ruining the vibe!”

“Oh, sorry to disturb your alone time with my cock!”

Sherlock gets out John’s flaccid penis and releases some of the... tension. In his bladder, of course. This is the weirdest thing he’s ever done, he thinks, as the last of it disappears down the urinal’s drain. He shakes John’s penis to get rid of the last drops and -

Makes the mistake of looking down.

Holy shit.

“I… miscalculated,” he mumbles to himself, losing his composure.

This is… this is in unaroused state? Already… this big?

He pulls down John’s pants a little further - just a quick peek, for science -

“What do you think you’re doing?!” John yells. He - still in Sherlock’s body - has entered the bathroom and is now staring angrily at Sherlock.

It’s very fitting, being yelled at like this - Sherlock does feel like yelling at himself for this.

“John, I -”

“Are you…?!”

John falls quiet at once. His jaw still open, his eyes travel down his own body, in which Sherlock’s brain is in alarm phase three.

John scrapes his - Sherlock’s - throat.

“You have a… ummm…” He seems to gather his courage. “You have a boner.”

He looks up.

“Technically,” Sherlock tries, “it’s your body. Your boner.”

There’s a small pause.

John places his hands on Sherlock’s hips. “Don’t just stand there! Do something, you twat!”

“What do you normally do!”

Another pause. Sherlock looks into his own, stunned, disbelieving eyes, unmistakably John looking back.

“Oh.”

“Exactly,” John says. “Though now is not the time for puns.”

“I’m not going to masturbate _your_ boner!” Sherlock complains. He’s not ever touching that thing again. They’re in a hospital, perhaps he can find a stoma somewhere…

Oh god, he hadn’t even thought of pooping yet.

“Well, technically…” John starts.

“Shut up”, Sherlock replies, looking himself in the face. He breathes deeply, looking down at John’s still erect cock. This cannot stand.

“Just… think of cricket,” John suggests.

“I’ve never thought of cricket in my life!”

“I mean, try focusing on unsexy things,” John continues. “Like… Maths.”

“Maths is very sexy, John,” Sherlock says.

“Is that what your mother told you?”

“Don’t talk about my mother when I’m like this,” Sherlock motions toward John’s leaking cock. Oh god. He should really avoid looking at it - that only seems to make it worse.

“But that’s the point! To think of stuff that will turn you off!” John sighs. “How about corpses? Oh no, that will only turn you on more.”

Sherlock rolls John’s eyes.

“Oh, I know!” John says. “Think of Mycroft.”

And just like that, it goes flaccid - it even tries to retreat back into John’s body, Sherlock notes. He quickly zips up, washes his hands and leaves the bathroom, his former body following in his wake.

“Wait, why were you aroused in the first place?” John mumbles.

“Maybe you have a piss kink.”

“I don’t have a…!” John yells, but Sherlock whirls around and stops him.

“And by the way, John Watson, you keep those hands off _my_ body, I don’t want to feel strangely… relaxed when I return to it!”

 

***

 

“Sherlock! Sherlock! Wake up! Sherlock!”

Sherlock slowly climbs up from a deep, deep sleep as he hears his own voice waking himself.

Oh right, the bodyswap.

Sherlock groans.

“Wake up! I - meaning you - have to go to work! I have a shift at the practice today and I don’t plan on losing my job!” John says.

Suddenly, he stops shaking Sherlock’s shoulders, and falls eerily quiet.

“Why aren’t you wearing pajamas?” John asks.

“I never sleep in pajamas.”

“Yeah but…” he sounds as if he’s treading dangerous waters. “Where did you find my old military uniform?”

A sudden headache flashes through Sherlock’s brain. Or is it panic? He pulls his blanket higher up John’s body, to the chin.

“I’d like some privacy please!” He says indignantly.

“That’s not for sleeping in!” John scolds.

“Get out of your room!”

 

***

 

After a quick shower - with his eyes closed, to avoid further embarrassment - Sherlock dresses John’s body in work-appropriate clothes. Perhaps a bit fancier than John would have done, tie and everything. But he’s the boss of this body now, he figures. And if he dresses John decently, perhaps it will make him see how handsome he could look with a few simple adjustments?

When he gets downstairs, the kitchen smells like pancakes.

“See, Sherlock,” John says. “Your body _can_ cook.”

“Is that how you’re going to do my hair today?” Sherlock frowns, looking at the gaggle of curls, tamed by - could it be? Not even _one_ product?

“I got lost in the hair product cupboard,” John says, whipping a pancake on Sherlock’s plate.

“Don’t lie, you’re not tiny anymore!”

John starts eating a pancake grumpily, which quickly seems to alleviate his mood. He even helps himself to a second and third serving.

“Glad you can finally… feed me up?” Sherlock asks.

John grins behind wicked curls. “It’s what bodyswapped friends do. Now eat up,” he urges. “We need to leave soon.”

“Can’t I just call in sick while we work this little problem out?” Sherlock asks.

“No. It’s very busy this time of year.”

“They’ll sack you once I accidentally kill people by diagnosing the whooping cough as a regular cough,” Sherlock says.

“Or once you open your mouth,” John adds. “But I’ve thought of that. I’ll pose as a student doctor. That way, you can ask me to perform examinations and tell me I’m doing well, while providing patients with actual care.”

“That’s… quite clever,” Sherlock says, chewing. “My body is suiting you, John.”

When they dash out of the door, Sherlock momentarily forgets himself and puts on his Belstaff, its _unusually long_ sleeves confusing him before accidentally almost tripping over a loose tile in the hallway.

“Is this what it’s like to be short?”

John, bumping into the top of the doorway: “What?”

At that moment, Mrs Hudson enters the hallway.

“Thought I heard you boys,” she says happily. “Where are you two off to in such a hurry?”

Sherlock takes off the Belstaff and hands it to, what must seem to Mrs Hudson, its rightful owner. She looks doubtfully between them two.

“Wearing each other’s clothes in private, eh?” She winks. “Oh, I’ve seen a thing or two in my day. My husband used to wear my …”

“Mrs Hudson!” Sherlock interrupts. “We really need to get going. Duty calls, John… I mean _I_ need to get to work.”

“I’ll be assisting him today,” John unhelpfully adds. “As a detective, I might learn something.”

“Doubt it,” Sherlock hisses, and exits.

When they arrive at the hospital where John works as a general practitioner, a blonde women steps up to greet them.

“You must be Doctor Watson,” she beams.

Sherlock looks her up and down. Cat lover. Size 12. Lib Dem. Secret tattoo. Clever. Bakes own bread.

“I’m Mary,” she says.

“The new nurse,” John says, and he holds out Sherlock’s hand. “We’ve been longing for one. I mean, looking forward.”

Sherlock rolls John’s eyes.

Mary smiles and shakes his hand. “And who might you be?”

“I’m… Sssssherlock. I’ll be assisting Doctor Watson today,” John says.

Sherlock notices his body is doing something strange - leaning toward her, donning a half-smile, almost… blushing?

Sherlock Holmes, blushing?

He can’t believe he must witness this with his not even own two eyes.

“Well, we really must get going,” Sherlock says.

“Yes, you go and prepare for the day, in your office. I need a coffee,” John says smoothly. “Care for one, Mary?”

Sherlock shoots him a dark, disapproving look and steps toward the office that has John’s name printed next to it. Hm, interesting. He’s never been here before. It’s not snooping if it’s your own office, right?

He opens a drawer. Syringes and a stack of sick notes. Boring.

The next drawer provides even less excitement: files.

He sifts through them, just to check for familiar names. Nothing.

Then, in the back, in a seemingly empty space there are a few polaroids. Sherlock grabs them: they’re familiar. Taken during Christmas last year. He, John and Molly, smiling. Lestrade and Mrs Hudson exchanging gifts. And then, a candid one he hadn’t seen before, of himself, playing the violin. Quite blurry due to the movement. Sherlock frowns. Weird that John would keep such a bad picture.

At that moment, the man himself - well, almost - bursts through the door. Sherlock quickly closes the drawer.

“Why were you being rude to that new nurse?” John scolds.

“I’m you, aren’t I?”

“ _I’d_ be nice!” John yells.

Sherlock shrugs. “I skipped some steps.”

It’s true - on last year’s Christmas photos, he’s noticed John apparently cut off a shape. He knows perfectly well who: Jeanette. The boring teacher.

John shakes his head, annoyed, and hands Sherlock a steaming coffee cup.

“Now, you better behave, the first…” he says, but at that moment an elderly woman with bad personal hygiene steps through the door.

She looks bewildered from one to the other.

“Hello… patient,” Sherlock greets her hesitantly, slapping a stethoscope around his neck for effect. Should he have known the name of this woman? Is she a regular client?

He gestures to - well, his usual body behind him. “This is a student doctor, Sherlock Holmes.”

The woman looks a bit startled and out of breath. “Sherlock Holmes, isn’t that a famous detective?”

That cheers him up a bit.

“Yes, the only consulting detective in the…”

“Yes, but he… _I_ … have been pursuing a medical agree,” John hastily interrupts. “It’s certainly a more noble profession, wouldn’t you agree, Doctor Watson?”

“Wouldn’t I,” Sherlock grits through John’s teeth.

Deducing living people’s possible causes of death turns out predictably dull and tedious. They tend to struggle and object to everything. Sherlock prefers dead bodies. _People always lie._ However, John proves himself a helpful student doctor, taking over most examinations of the day.

Until, near the end of the work day, it’s Sherlock’s time to shine.

A young man, seemingly a bit flustered, enters the room.

“This is a student doctor, Sherlock,” Sherlock says for the umpteenth time that day. Playing doctor isn’t as fun as he thought it would be.

“I’m here for my, eh,” the man says. “For my four o’clock rectal exam.”

Or is it?

Sherlock smiles.

“Aren’t you a bit old to be a student doctor?” The man asks John.

“Shut up,” Sherlock says. “He looks really young. And dashing.”

John giggles.

“Right, Professor Watson. Do you mind if I take this one?” John asks.

Sherlock can’t believe he’s started calling himself _Professor Watson_ , that pompous dick.

“I can handle it,” Sherlock smiles.

Oh, how he relishes John’s astonished look.

 

***

 

Before they leave, John makes a point of chatting with Mary again. Though she seems eager to involve Sherlock in the conversation.

Logical, of course - she’ll be working closely with Doctor Watson, after all.

“Doctor Watson…” she starts.

“You can call him John,” John says.

She raises her eyebrows.

“Why did you decide to become a doctor?”

What kind of question is that?

Sherlock swallows.

“You know, the usual, boring reasons. I wanted to help people.”

“He was an army doctor before he worked here,” John helpfully provides. “Saved a lot of lives in Afghanistan. He wouldn’t tell you himself, though. He’s very modest.”

Sherlock glares at him. “Of course, I had a lot of great role models. You see, I had come into contact with doctors myself plenty of times. Especially as a teenager. The STD’s I’ve had…”

John drags him forcefully out of there.

 

***

 

They’re awfully quiet in the cab ride.

Sherlock can’t help but grinning.

“Did you have to be such a dick?” John asks.

“Did you have to jump on her while you’re still in my body?” Sherlock retorts. “It’ll cause me trouble. You’re ruining my reputation.”

“Oh, right. Sociopath Sherlock, unfeeling, never interested in anyone,” John snaps.

It sounds strange - Sherlock has heard his own voice calling himself a sociopath many times, but never in this tone.

“We can’t all be swinging our cocks around the world,” Sherlock says.

“I was just being nice!”

Sherlock jumps out the taxi and they argue all the way back to the apartment.

“You thought she was attractive!” Sherlock says.

“Well, she’s a… nurse,” John explains, hanging his Belstaff on the wrong hook.

“And?”

“Never mind.”

“I just don’t think you should be flirting with my body,” Sherlock says, a little calmer.

John looks at him, his eyes flickering to his lips. Sherlock licks his lips, and swallows.

For a few seconds, nothing happens. Then, John heads straight for the bathroom.

“Don’t run away from me!” Sherlock says, following him.

“I… I need to wee. I’m done arguing with myself. It’s weird.”

Sherlock puts a hand on his body’s shoulder, forcing John to face him. He looks… flushed.

Slightly embarrassed.

His hands move to the front of his trousers.

Sherlock looks down - and there it is. An… An erection? For Mary?

“Look what you made my body do!” Sherlock yells.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen!” John says, looking apologetic. “It’s involuntarily. Something must have set it off.”

Sherlock blinks rapidly. Nothing comes to mind. Usually, he has quite a tight control over his body. If something arouses him, he quickly looks away.

“Well…,” John fills the silence, weighing his words carefully. “What do you usually do with an erection?”

Sherlock is taken aback. “I… don’t know.”

“You’ve never experimented?”

“I experiment all the time, John!”

“I mean… sexually.”

“If you’re talking about masturbation, John, I know of it and I try to do it efficiently and as little as possible.”

John looks appalled down Sherlock’s body. “ _Efficiently?_ ”

“Yes, well. My body sometimes expresses a need and I answer it, but there’s no point in dragging it out.”

“I’m sure you’ve… experimented,” John says decidedly.

“What?”

“You were remarkably good at giving that rectal exam today, for example.”

Sherlock raises his eyebrows. What on earth is he implying? Does he want a... helping hand?

“I’m not giving myself a rectal exam, John.”

“No, that would be… quite awkward”, John says. “But you must… errr. You must have... impulses. Take some pleasure in… pleasuring yourself. It’s not just mechanics to you, is it?”

Never did he ever imagine John interrogating him about masturbation.

The mechanics of shooting himself in the face sound quite interesting to Sherlock now.

Which face, he’s not even sure.

“John, I…”

“Has this body…” John looks down hesitantly, putting his hands on Sherlock’s hips. “This body _has_ been touched, right?”

Sherlock pales. “John.”

John takes a step closer, and hesitantly lifts an arm. Sherlock sees how his own two hands reach out and touch John Watson’s side - something he has fantasised about, many times indeed. And now he’s not even there to feel it.

He feels John’s caress, though.

“I just want to know,” John whispers close to Sherlock’s ears. “Has this body ever been held?”

He’s even closer now - and Sherlock leans in, opens John’s arms, wraps them around to his back. Sherlock closes John’s eyes, and allows their bodies to merge. He can feel himself melting away. This feels - wonderful, glorious, amazing, fantastic.

This feels like a massive boner pressing into him.

Oh god.

To make matters worse, John’s body starts having a - well, what else could it be called? A sympathy boner.

John leans away a bit, and looks down, smirking.

“I thought I felt something familiar.”

Sherlock feels heat rising to John’s cheeks.

John pulls back and scrapes his throat. They both have obvious erections poking against the fabric of their trousers.

“How about we, eh, solve this pressing issue?” John asks. “The old-fashioned way.”

“Suicide?”

John laughs shortly, and reaches into one of the bathroom cabinets, pulling out a bottle of lube. “I’ll do yours and you do mine. In a manner of speaking, they’re ours anyway.”

Sherlock’s breath hitches. He can’t be serious?

Are they really going to do this?

Well - he doesn’t want to think about Mycroft, that much is certain.

“I suppose it’s like masturbating, but from a different angle,” Sherlock concedes.

John shakes Sherlock’s head. “I can’t believe we’re about to do this,” he says, approaching rather eagerly for someone protesting so much.

John steps a bit closer and uses Sherlock’s long fingers to slide down his zipper. Slowly, he pushes down Sherlock’s underwear, and rubs his thumb over the huge cock’s tip, smearing the precum. _Ohhhhhhh god._ That feels… Sherlock bites his bottom lip. Very much _not_ like masturbating.

They’re standing on the threshold of the bathroom - Sherlock on the threshold of sanity. John releases, well, his former cock, to pull down his own zipper. Sherlock stands stock still, though one part of himself is trembling particularly hard.

“John…” he breathes. “I’m… You’re leaking.”

Sherlock is panting. It feels overwhelming. Instinctively, he backs away against the wall. A shiver runs down John’s spine; not so much because it’s cold, however.

He doesn’t think coldness will help at this point.

John’s cock is standing even more erect, if at all possible. Sherlock can feel it trembling, wanting, aching for touch. Yet, John doesn’t touch it anymore. Instead, he reaches out and runs his hands softly down his chest, then upwards again.

“You want this?” John asks, in a thick, velvety voice.

 _Oh god_ , Sherlock thinks. _Does my voice really sound like that?_

“Yes,” he says unsteadily. He doesn’t want to stop. “Go on, please.”

Sherlock closes his eyes. He doesn’t think his legs will carry him much longer. He’s already near the floor on John’s.

John starts rubbing his right nipple through the fabric of his shirt.

_Holy mother of g…._

Sherlock feels John’s cock twitching desperately. That bastard. He must know _all_ the sensitive areas of his own body.

He mustn’t let on.

John pinches his nipple, quite hard.

 _Ghrrmvblrrrr_.

Sherlock can’t help it. He’s positively rutting against the wall now, pushing his hips forward wantingly. But how could he blame anyone but John? This is _his_ body after all, reacting to touch. Predictably, even -

 _Hmmffvvfffffff_ , Sherlock breathes as John moves to his left nipple. _This one’s even worse_.

Eyes closed, he can almost hear John smile. But he can’t possibly open his eyes - seeing himself being pleasured by _himself_ would possibly cause a brain hemorrhage.

“John-,” Sherlock whispers, desperately.

He pushes his hips forward again, while John moves closer, almost hugging him against the wall. Can’t think about that, however, because a soft, warm hand closes around his cock and moves slowly upwards, dragging out the single most wonderful wank Sherlock has ever felt.

John pauses. Sherlock can feel him breathing against his ear. Likely, John too needs to recover from the experience - but _holy_ … that hot breath against his neck… Sherlock moves his hips so John’s cock slides against the hot fist wrapped around it, seeking friction, seeking more.

This seems to wake John up from his stunned state, because he pushes Sherlock back hard against the wall, effectively immobilising him.

Sherlock licks his lips. This - this - is -

Better than his mind palace.

John squirts some lube into his hand. With the other one, he stimulates Sherlock’s left nipple again, while he starts slowly jerking his cock. His thumb slides up and over the tip perpetually, as his large hand glides in a spiral motion up and down.

Sherlock glances down, and looks at John’s beautiful, thick cock, being pleasured by his own hand, while feeling each and every nerve ending with radiating precision.

With his other hand, John moves his hand from his nipple to his own pants, slowly pushing them down, releasing his cock. Then, he pushes forward until their cocks touch.

Ohhhhhh. Sherlock moans desperately.

John squirts some more lube into his - Sherlock’s - hand and and rubs his thumb over their shafts. It comes surprisingly naturally - Sherlock moves his hips forward, sliding John’s cock against his own, looking for a rhythm. John wraps his hand loosely over both of them, providing a warmth to push into, an irresistible heat building with mutual force. Sherlock breathes heavily, and John picks up the pace, going faster and faster.

With his other hand, John moves his hand from his nipple to his mouth, and Sherlock takes one finger inside, wrapping his tongue around it.

This is too much.

He can’t -

He comes violently.

“Fuck,” John says, as an orgasm overtakes him as well. John keeps jerking them both through their aftershocks - have those always felt this intense? - while Sherlock shakingly holds onto his shoulders. He grunts. It’s John, _John’s orgasm_ he’s hearing and feeling, which makes it somehow even more arousing. Soon, it’s not all that clear anymore which is which, who is who, and for a few moments, the bodyswap doesn’t feel all that much like a bad thing.

***

 

Sherlock mustn’t think about last night anymore, now. That would be inappropriate. They’re at a crime scene, after all. A woman is lying dead on the floor. Sherlock’s body is bent over it.

Which means: Sherlock is staring at his own arse. Does it… Does it always look like that? Is _that_ what John sees?

Sherlock squints, but then catches Lestrade staring. He quickly recovers, and puts a scowling look on John’s face.

“Why did you call me for merely a two, Lestrade?”

Quite a simple case, really. Not worth their time.

“Christ,” Lestrade says. “What’s gotten into you, John?”

Sherlock pales.

“Sherlock,” John mumbles almost imperceptibly, sniffing the body’s wrist with dramatic flair.

“Shut up, or I’ll tattoo you,” Sherlock hisses at his former body.

Too late: Lestrade has already heard the comment, and grins broadly.

“Right. Finally figured things out, eh, you two?” Lestrade says. “Anderson owes me fifty pounds.”

Sherlock glares. Great. Now Lestrade thinks they’re _shagging_.

Anyway, that was just _masturbating_.

At the same time. It’s just logical, really. Time saving.

He pulls John away from the body he’s crouched over, wielding a magnifying glass confusedly.

“We need to solve this soon,” Sherlock hisses.

“Well, I’ve examined the body and...”

“No, I mean _us_. _This_. My body is just transport, it’s not supposed to… transport.”

“Oh, right. Yes,” John says, rubbing his long neck. If Sherlock didn’t know any better, he’d detect some… regret in that familiar voice.

“Well?” Lestrade’s baritone thunders through the room. “Got any idea how she died?”

Sherlock whirls around on his feet. “Really, Gav… Geor… Lestrade. I would think even Anderson could have solved this one. Look at the way she’s dressed. Quite fancy for her, especially when you take a look in her bedroom closet. Designer dress, the most expensive earrings she owns, Chanel perfume. She was preparing for the evening of her life. So, she thought she’d pop a bottle of champagne. Popped right into her eye” - he points to the bruised wound - “now this would normally be merely an inconvenience, nothing lethal. But with her, it triggered a tumor that had been growing behind her eye for a while now. Prescription for new lenses on her desk, you see…”

“But do not observe,” John adds.

“Right. Neither did she. Because of her tumor. Which, for a lack of a better word, exploded into her brain just now. The murderer, Lestrade, is herself,” Sherlock concludes.

Lestrade looks like his jaw has decided to start a new life in the South Pole. “Wow, John,” he says. “You almost sound like Sherlock.”

Sherlock swallows. Whoops.

“You seem a bit… out of character,” Lestrade continues.

“Literally,” the real John mumbles somewhere in the background.

“In a good way, I mean. You’re surprisingly good at this deduction stuff. If you ever want to start on your own…” Lestrade teases.

But before Sherlock can recover, John - inside Sherlock’s body - interrupts. “He doesn’t. Now let’s go, S… John, I mean. Let’s go home, _John_.”

John manhandles Sherlock away from the crime scene.

“I wish your body could have a cigarette about now,” John hisses. “But I won’t let it. Damn it.”

They step into a taxi that was waiting on the curb - lucky.

“That was close,” Sherlock says. He looks down at John’s hands, letting them hold each other. He loves the feeling, really. Holding John’s hands. In John’s hands. “And, by the way, John… You did… You were really n…”

His awkward rambling is interrupted by the sound of all car doors being locked simultaneously. He looks up, to see the taxi driver’s eyes smiling at him.

His heart stops.

It’s Moriarty.

“I thought you would’ve learned to mistrust taxis by now,” Moriarty grins, taking a hard right. “But you two lovebirds were a bit distracted, I see.”

Oh no.

“Where are you taking us?” John demands.

Sherlock notices he’s putting his curls in place, trying to act like Sherlock would. Smart. Best not show Moriarty their hand.

“Patience, patience,” Moriarty says, grinning. “Sherlock.”

Moriarty steps on the gas and guides them through London.

“Should’ve taken an Uber,” John grits through Sherlock’s teeth.

Sherlock is trying desperately to think. Because of their bodyswapped state, Moriarty might actually kill John, accidentally. Or will he target him first, thinking to tease him with his ‘pet’? Which scenario would be better? Sherlock is a skilled boxer and fighter, and has some moves Moriarty wouldn’t expect of John. Then again, John is not without skill either. Both of them could put up a fight.

If there are guns, however, they’re equally helpless.

He doesn’t want to see John die; he doesn’t want to feel John’s body dying.

Moriarty pulls into the underground parking lot of a large, darkened building. An abandoned children’s hospital; closed after funding was pulled. Its benefactor, apparently, turned out to be a serial killer a few years ago. Sherlock had read about it with interest, in the papers.

When the taxi stops, Moriarty gets out and opens the door on John’s side, holding out a gun.

“Don’t get any ideas, mister detective,” Moriarty says. “Not just yet.”

He leads them into the building, and after a long walk, motions them to go inside an abandoned laboratory.

Not quite abandoned, however.

In the corner, sat spread-eagle on a chair, is nurse Mary.

“Mary?” John says. “Are you… are you hurt?”

But Mary slowly gets up and stretches her limbs, cracks her neck amusedly.

“You’ve always been the slow one,” she says.

Sherlock looks from John, inside his own body, to Mary. Mary turns to him.

“Have you figured it out yet?” She asks. Sherlock doesn’t reply. “Tut tut tut. Sooooo disappointing,” she sings.

“You… No.” Sherlock shakes his head. “It can’t be.”

“Mary is my best sniper,” Mary says.

“... Moriarty,” Sherlock says disbelieving, locking eyes with his displaced blogger. Then, he turns to Moriarty. “You’re Mary?”

“That’s right,” the real Mary says, in Moriarty’s high-pitched voice. “We swapped bodies, right while we were in the middle of our beautiful plan. He was lying ‘dead’ on the rooftop, I was looking at John through my rifle’s lense. Then, in an instant, we switched.”

“Shit,” John mumbles to himself. “I thought _Moriarty_ was a bit attractive?”

 _Shit_ , Sherlock thinks while eyeing Mary’s deep-cut blouse, _I thought Moriarty was a bit attractive._

“Well,” Mary - or really, Moriarty - says, “once it happened we thought we’d just have some fun.”

“Thank god we were above that,” Sherlock says, very much not thinking about the sex.

In the corner of his eye, he sees John raising an eyebrow.

“We figured out very quickly the same had happened to you two,” Moriarty says, touting her lips. “The harness thing was quite… amusing.”

Mary’s body walks closer to John’s body, wielding a gun of her own.

“You see, I’d gotten some blood spatters on you when I shot myself,” she says. “We think it was in the fake blood. Some kind of strange chemistry. Now we need to find a way to reverse it. And aren’t you a graduate chemist?”

“Why would I help you? For you to simply shoot me and John afterwards?” Sherlock asks, motioning to his own body. “Once you know _who_ you’re killing.”

Moriarty grins, then fires the gun Mary was holding. A blank.

“We’re unarmed, both of us,” he explains, adjusting an earring. “Mary and I propose a temporary truce. I think we both want the same thing: feel like ourselves again. I would like to leave this body before her period starts.”

“Wait, why didn’t _we_ swap bodies?” Sherlock asks. “You and I, Moriarty, we were on the roof together after all,” he says, looking at Mary. This is complicated. He, too, prefers Moriarty without boobs.

“Probably you switch with the one you were thinking of,” Moriarty says. “ _This phone call is my note, John_. All so very touching.”

The words makes John’s fist twitch, Sherlock notices. Interesting. _Involuntary respons_ , _then_ , he stores the information away.

Mary’s body gestures to a bag of blood next to a microscope and what looks like a fully outfitted laboratory.

“You have everything you need. So get working.”

Sherlock weighs his options. Working together with Moriarty and Mary? The thought alone repels him. But he glances at his own body, sitting miserably nearby. John. He deserves to be returned to his rightful… palace. Absentmindedly, Sherlock rubs John’s chest. He’ll miss this. Seeing this in the morning, in bed. Granted, not next to him. But… closer. More intimate.

Sherlock steps toward the bag of blood and starts rummaging through the provided gear. Tubes, erlenmeyers, various substances, mice to experiment on, and even a written recipe for the fake blood. Good. He _is_ very curious about how such a bodyswap could ever be physically possible. Is his spirit running on John’s brain? Does this mean there are such things as ghosts?

No. There’s no such things as ghosts.

Sherlock straightens John’s shoulders and gets to work. He tests and mixes and tastes and peers into the microscope while Moriarty, Mary and John make a strange, mostly quiet company. John stares at him intently. Probably an odd experience to see _himself_ be so good at chemistry, Sherlock supposes.

It’s well into the morning hours when finally, he has a breakthrough. Much to the mice’s pleasure, it seems. One of them suddenly knows his way around a familiar labyrinth again - meaning he’s quite himself again.

Sherlock looks up, relieved.

“Well, text the Nobel Prize committee, I’ve got it,” he says, pouring the final solution in two cups. “Moriarty, Mary’s body I mean, and myself should rub this on our skin and think of the other, we’ll be transported right back.”

Eagerly, Moriarty makes Mary’s body move forward.

“How do you know I won’t use this blood against you?” Moriarty says with a wink, as he rubs the substance on her cheek, intensely staring at Sherlock.

“Because,” Sherlock says. “Only I know the cure.”

With a jolt, Mary and Moriarty seem to switch bodies again. Gulping, Moriarty grabs his knees, then quickly fondles his crotch.

“Finally, reunited with my… greatest weapon,” he says. “No offense to your vagina, Mary.”

He winks at Sherlock.

“No visible side effects, it seems,” Sherlock says. “And the mice seem fine as well.”

“We’ll quickly be off then. Kill you later!”

Mary is already out the door, Moriarty following her lazily.

“I’d shake your hand, Moriarty, but last time was a tad intense,” Sherlock says.

“Too firm?”

With a wink, Moriarty disappears, leaving Sherlock and John to their own devices.

A pressing silence falls. John has been very quiet throughout this night, Sherlock notes. He turns to him. His old body is folded between two working tables, and looks up at him.

“I suppose this is it,” John says, getting up.

Like a soldier about to be executed.

“It’s for the best,” Sherlock says.

“It’s been… interesting,” John says. “Being you.”

Sherlock looks down and sighs. He feels… he can’t possibly say what he feels. Best get on with it. He takes a portion of his cure, and rubs the blood on his arm.

“Just be yourself,” he says with a wink, and focuses on John.

John. John. _John_.

It happens almost instantly - like a sneeze. Suddenly, Sherlock is back in his actual body, with his old arms and legs and… _oh yes_ , his old hair. He can finally fix it right.

He looks John in the eyes, who smiles wickedly.

“Well, well. I’m finally inside your pet!” He says in a Moriarty voice.

Sherlock almost falters. It can’t be…

“Kidding,” John says. “Kidding! Sorry.”

They laugh nervously.

“Christ. Have you been holding in gas?” John says, rubbing his stomach.

“It seemed only polite,” Sherlock mutters. He touches John’s arm hesitantly. “Back to Baker Street?”

“Yes, please.”

Sherlock is ready to leave instantly, but John looks at the bag of magic blood. “Shall we take this? You know… Just in case…” He clears his throat.

“Oh,” Sherlock says, definitely not thinking about the sex. “Indeed. You’re becoming a real scientist, John. You never know when it will come in… handy.”

He smiles. John looks up hesitantly, then his face clears.

“Right,” John says.

The _real John_ \- oh, delightful.

“Now, tell me again about your experience with those rectal exams.”

**Author's Note:**

> Writing sex with he/he pronouns is already super complicated, but having them bodyswapped... Lol it was quite a challenge ;) I hope you guys liked it! I'd love it if you dropped a comment to tell me what you thought, but no hard feelings if you don't, of course. Thanks for reading either way! I hope you're all ok and have an excellent day. x


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